How does the Year scale relate to the other four?

The five nest, widest to finest: Stage → Year → Month → Day → Hour. Year is one year long and is read inside whatever contains it, which is why the board never shows one scale alone. The other four are Stage (ten years), Month (one lunar month), Day (one day), Hour (two hours).

Time Analysis · the Year scale

The Year scale — one year at a time

How long: One year
Turns over on: 1 January, on the ordinary calendar
What it returns: A tone
Sits inside: The Stage
Read at: Soul Bonding, free

The scale most people mean when they ask what a year holds. It names one life domain as the year's focus and gives the year a mood — whether the twelve months favour taking ground, holding it, or watching where the pressure is coming from. It sits inside the Stage and is filtered by it, so a bright year inside a difficult decade reads differently from the same year inside an easy one, which is why the board shows both together and why reading the year alone is reading half of it. What the year adds that the Stage cannot is a subject specific enough to act on: a decade about work is a description, and a year about reputation, or about paperwork, or about a partnership is something a person can plan around. It is also the widest scale that still turns over often enough to be worth checking, which is why it is the one the ladder names.

Where the Year boundary falls

The year turns over on 1 January, on the ordinary calendar, and this is the boundary most likely to be assumed wrong. Lunar New Year moves the community a birth year belongs to, and it does not move this. The board fixes the year pillar from a point in the middle of the year specifically so the February boundary never lands in the middle of a reading. So a reader who knows their birth year shifts at the lunar new year should not carry that across: the birth year and the year being lived through are two different questions, and only the first one moves.

What the verdict is called

Every scale returns a verdict, and no two scales use the same words for it. The Year returns a tone:

Opportunity
Warning
Stable
Transformative

A verdict is a weighting on the period, not a prediction of an event. It says which way the span leans, and the finer scales inside it decide where that lands.

What the Year scale will not tell you

A year will not tell you which month anything lands in, and its mood is a weighting rather than a promise — a difficult year still contains good months and the reverse. It also says nothing about anyone else's year, which is a common misreading when two people compare: the focus domain comes out of each person's own chart and two people living through the same calendar year are usually pointed at different parts of their lives by it.

The scale above it is the Stage, which is what this one is read inside. The scale below it is the Month, which is where this one's subject actually lands on a calendar.

The Year reading opens at Soul Bonding along with the other three free scales. Where its focus falls in a particular life needs a cast chart, which is the half the board works out and this page does not.

Frequently asked

What does the Year scale tell you?: The scale most people mean when they ask what a year holds. It names one life domain as the year's focus and gives the year a mood — whether the twelve months favour taking ground, holding it, or watching where the pressure is coming from. It sits inside the Stage and is filtered by it, so a bright year inside a difficult decade reads differently from the same year inside an easy one, which is why the board shows both together and why reading the year alone is reading half of it. What the year adds that the Stage cannot is a subject specific enough to act on: a decade about work is a description, and a year about reputation, or about paperwork, or about a partnership is something a person can plan around. It is also the widest scale that still turns over often enough to be worth checking, which is why it is the one the ladder names.
When does the Year scale turn over?: The year turns over on 1 January, on the ordinary calendar, and this is the boundary most likely to be assumed wrong. Lunar New Year moves the community a birth year belongs to, and it does not move this. The board fixes the year pillar from a point in the middle of the year specifically so the February boundary never lands in the middle of a reading. So a reader who knows their birth year shifts at the lunar new year should not carry that across: the birth year and the year being lived through are two different questions, and only the first one moves.
What can the Year scale not tell you?: A year will not tell you which month anything lands in, and its mood is a weighting rather than a promise — a difficult year still contains good months and the reverse. It also says nothing about anyone else's year, which is a common misreading when two people compare: the focus domain comes out of each person's own chart and two people living through the same calendar year are usually pointed at different parts of their lives by it.
How does the Year scale relate to the other four?: The five nest, widest to finest: Stage → Year → Month → Day → Hour. Year is one year long and is read inside whatever contains it, which is why the board never shows one scale alone. The other four are Stage (ten years), Month (one lunar month), Day (one day), Hour (two hours).

Seat yourself on the board to see which of your twelve domains the Year scale is pointing at, and what the scales above and below it are doing at the same time.

Open the Bonding Map